


Singing 'Hallelujah' With the Fear In Your Heart

by ChemFishee



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: 2010 Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChemFishee/pseuds/ChemFishee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The whole point of the world ending is that it ends. Everywhere. Except where it doesn’t. [Post-apocalypse]<br/>(July 2010)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Singing 'Hallelujah' With the Fear In Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Based on fictionalized portrayals in the HBO miniseries. This was originally [comment fic](http://chemfishee.livejournal.com/168951.html?thread=1839607#t1839607) for meeks00. It's since been reworked and expanded at the gentle urging of meeks00 and sharksdontsleep. This is for you, bbs. Title courtesy of Arcade Fire’s “Intervention”.
> 
> Beta’d by the stupendous sharksdontsleep, who won’t let me magic away inconsistencies (and who does give a fuck about an Oxford comma). Any remaining mistakes are due to my tinkering.
> 
> (Originally posted [here](http://chemfishee.livejournal.com/182264.html).

Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.  
\-- _The Road_ , Cormac McCarthy

…all that existed was movement, which is the mask of many things, calm among them.  
\-- _2666_ , Roberto Bolaño

we got a minefield of cripple affection  
all for the borrowed mirror connection  
\-- “World Sick”, Broken Social Scene

The world doesn’t end in a tin can on top of the bones of ancient people. It doesn’t end in treacherous mountain passes his mom still can’t pronounce. It doesn’t end when he admits he’s had enough and retreats from the coast to do fuck-all in a town that doesn’t know if he’s a hero or villain or maybe some combination of the two.

Well, that’s not _entirely_ true. The whole point of the world ending is that it ends. _Everywhere_. Except where it doesn’t.

 

-

 

Ray can hear Brad, two time zones over, rattle through a drawer of wrenches for the 9/16 he needs to tighten the bolt on his bike. Ray has already talked, virtually uninterrupted, for an hour and a half.

“Homes, I’m telling you. This chick’s shirt was off and I was staring at these tits so perky, my mouth was watering before I even got a taste. So I’m working one of them and reaching down her pants. Bitch slaps my hand away before I even get a finger in the waistband. I figure, fuck it, maybe she’s ticklish. So I try again. And get slapped again. Now I’m getting fucking pissed, so I go all ninja-stealth on her and cup her through her pants. And you know what I felt, Brad?”

“A cock.”

“A fucking _half-hard_ cock.” Ray pauses to take a pull off his second beer of the call.

“So what’d you do, Ray? Kick the shim out and demand your money back and then jack off thinking about that dick up your ass? I fucking told you about ordering whores in Thailand.”

“Fuck no, dude. Let him suck me off. Best fucking blowjob of my life. Licked my asshole, too. Know what his name was? You’re never gonna believe it dude.” Ray pauses half a beat. “Said his name was Pis.” 

It sounds like ‘peace’.

Brad laughs from 1500 miles away. Ray stopped thinking in clicks when he got his brains back. “You couldn’t just fucking wait until Australia, could you? They at least speak the same base language there, enough to know the difference between ‘she’ and ‘he’. And they’re hot.”

“Oh, fuck you, Brad. You know you want them to send a dude to your skeazy, fleabag motel once. It’d be just like military school for you. Maybe with less handjobs.”

“I told you to stop fantasizing about my formative years, Ray.”

“Can’t help it, homes. I’ve seen your dick.”

 

-

 

Ray wakes to a gray sky and absolute silence. His alarm clock blinks 12:36 at him in angry green numerals. He hasn’t slept this late since he was a teenager. His days are now filled with routine and boredom and _adulthood_ , waiting for it to make sense, mean something.

Ever since he said, in all seriousness, that he wanted to go to Disneyland and then fuck the Homecoming Queen (maybe even the King), everyone has been handling him with kid gloves. He’s almost offended they think so little of him.

Brad doesn’t, of course. Brad picks up on the third ring every time, when he’s not out killing bad guys and making recruits shit from being in the vicinity of the fucking _Iceman_. Brad texts him rants about socialized medicine and the traumatic effects of country music and grand plans for a South American motorcycle trip when he gets out. 

Ray maps a route that purposely bypasses the entirety of Che and Alberto’s route, even though he knows the trip will never happen. The map hangs outside his bathroom.

 

-

 

Brad doesn’t answer when Ray calls him.

Well, it’s more like when Ray _tries_ to call him. There’s nothing, not even the click of a dropped connection.

 

-

 

There are no birds singing. There are no kids hurling insults. There are no dogs barking.

 

-

 

The TV is nothing but quiet static. He turns the volume up and up with no change. Ray tugs on his ears, trying to get them to pop. He feels like he’s underwater with his eyes open, waiting for Brad’s orders.

All the channels are white, gray, and black pixels swimming.

 

-

 

Ray coos at the steering wheel and rubs down the cracked dashboard. The starter turns over on the second try, and the truck sputters to life. He’s got three-quarters of a tank.

Ray hopes that’s enough to get him answers.

 

-

 

It’s Saturday, he thinks.

 

-

 

The truck makes it as far as the western half of Oklahoma, between Oklahoma City and the Texas Panhandle. Some town called Elk City. Ray coasts into a dilapidated gas station attached to a truckstop on a reservation. They advertise buffalo burgers. What they don’t tell the tourists is they taste exactly like hamburgers with less grease and more novelty.

The pump still works. Ray fills the truck. It should get him to Albuquerque.

There is no cashier inside. He drops four $20 bills on the counter, grabs five packs of American Spirits, three lighters, and two packages of Twinkies. 

He picks the gaudiest pair of sunglasses – red Wayfarers with yellow arms – off the rack by the door. They match the peeling paint on the truck’s hood, a second- or maybe third-hand vehicle he bought from a Wal-Mart cart chaser who threw in a bag of weed, mostly buds, complimentary. It was the first thing Ray bought when he got back, after a copy of _Rolling Stone_ from an airport newsagent.

He chases the slow descent of the sun. West.

 

-

 

The Twinkies last all of twenty minutes.

Ray is left with yellow cake stuck to the roof of his mouth and refined sugar crystals caught between his teeth. He gags when he shoves a finger in to scrape the remnants down his throat.

 

-

 

He chainsmokes a pack and a half of cigarettes before he gets to Amarillo. He needs to budget his resources better.

 

-

 

A full moon bleaches the monochromatic sand. It looks like grainy volcanic ash. It feels like hopeless desolation.

Empty railroad tracks run parallel to the interstate. 

 

-

 

A neon motel sign flickers outside the city. Shelter. Bed.

 

-

 

The cheap cotton sheets catch and drag along his shoulder blades. An ice machine gurgles, loud in the heavy silence.

Ray falls asleep with a rumbling stomach and no plan except _Find Brad_.

 

-

 

Headlights bounce through the grime-covered motel window. It’s the first sign of other life Ray has seen all day.

He hears them shoving into rooms at the end of the hall. He strains to make out what they’re saying, but it’s no use. There’s a scream cut off quickly, a blubbering sob, and then toothless laughter.

Ray rolls onto the floor and crawls to his own door. He flips the lock, bolts the chain. He sits with his back pressed to the painted metal, surveying the AO and cataloging potential weapons. He has himself, certified lethal by the United States Marine Corps, and a thirty-year-old television bolted fast to a particle board dresser. He wraps his arms around his knees and waits.

 

-

 

Watery gray light filters in around the edges. It wakes him up soft and slow. 

Ray unfurls his body carefully. His knees protest, and his shoulders ache. His head is foggy with a half-forgotten nightmare.

The water in the bathroom only runs cold and cloudy. Ray splashes his face, rips the wrapper off one of the complimentary bars of soap and works it into a lather. He washes as much of yesterday off in the sink as he can. He gargles the stale taste of cigarettes out with 80-proof mouthwash.

Silt fills in the lines of his palms. Ray cups his hands under the faucet and drinks quickly. The deep branch in his life line stands out in stark relief. 

 

-

 

There is a slick purple-black smear staining the concrete at the base of the metal stairs, a partial boot imprint on the still-tacky edge. 

 

-

 

Ray loses three hours rewiring the truck. Sweat crusts on the back of his neck before it even beads.

It’s a miracle there’s still gas in the tank. He stops at an abandoned Shell station. He leaves the engine running while he fills the tank and raids the convenience store for more cartons of American Spirits, beef jerky, pretzels, and chips. He grabs as many liters of water as he can carry in three trips. He doesn’t leave any money.

Ray fucking hates Texas.

 

-

 

Inside the New Mexico border, Ray admits he’s scared for the first time.

 

-

 

A dust storm blows across I-40 in the barren wasteland between Santa Rosa and Albuquerque. All he can see is brown. Ray doesn’t stop.

 

-

 

Ray cuts south at the I-40/I-25 interchange for a change in scenery. In Los Lunas, he stops at the Wal-Mart just off the exit ramp. The store remains mostly intact.

He heads to sporting goods first. He fills a duffel with the 12 gauge shotguns hanging behind the counter. There are two .308s and a cheap 30/06 under the register. He leaves the 30/06 after inspecting the firing pin. He doesn’t particularly want to blow himself up.

Ray breaks the glass on the case of shells with a golf club and scoops out as much as he can. He picks up a handgun in the case and looks for a holster. There are none. Self-appointed border patrol cocksuckers probably bought the entire stock. He tucks it in the back of his jeans, away from his balls. He can thumb the safety off easily.

Ray fills another bag with sweatshirts, packs of cheap cotton tees, four pairs of jeans and two pair of boots. He forgets to grab socks.

He pulls an adult-size bike off the rack by the toy section. It has working gears and streamers on the handlebars. It’s pink.

Ray dumps the bags on the backseat of his truck and then returns for food.

He fills a cart with jugs of water, more bags of chips, Skittles and fresh oranges. He’ll be fucked if he survived whatever this is only to die of scurvy.

A light dies with a sickening crunch over the cereal aisle. Ray snags three boxes of Cheerios.

There’s a sharp howl from the other side of the store. It could be outside, the wind. Or it could be something else, something sinister. He has already spent half an hour stocking up on guns and food. Ray doesn’t bother with the pharmacy.

 

-

 

The shopping cart rolls across the abandoned parking lot. There is no wind.

 

-

 

Outside of Socorro, less than an hour later, he sees the first bones, greasy yellow and charred black.

He stops without thinking.

The skull is humanoid. The skeleton is short, possibly a child. A scrap of orange, what might have been a shirt, is caught under an arm. When Ray lifts the bone, there are teeth marks.

There is still flesh on the legs, rank with putrefaction. 

He kneels and begins digging with his hands.

 

-

 

He lights a cigarette to hide the thick burn in the back of his throat.

 

-

 

Night falls fast in Las Cruces. Ray locks the doors and lies down across the front seats. The seatbelt latch digs into his ribs.

He lays the handgun on the floor, safety off.

He mumbles the first verse of “King of the Road” for something to do.

 

-

 

Ray wakes before dawn and peels an orange. The acid burns his ragged cuticles.

 

-

 

Sunrises in the desert look like mirages.

 

-

 

The sprinklers don’t even come on in Phoenix.

 

-

 

The truck gets a flat in one of the suburbs or exurbs or whatever the fuck the urban sprawl encroaching on the endless sand is called. He hopes the truck will hold together until Oceanside.

It does.

So does his sanity.

 

-

 

Ray didn’t think he’d be back _here_ already. Ray also didn’t think the world would end while he was sleeping. Ray maybe needs to start thinking these things.

 

-

 

When the door on Brad’s house swings open on the first knock, Ray panics. (Ray knows it’s actually a bungalow, but the one time he called it that, Brad took a drunken swing at him that caught the edge of his jaw and bruised like a motherfucker. Ray said some other shit that night, too, foggy in a tequila haze. But Poke swears Brad didn’t hit him until Ray said ‘bungalow’. Poke may be lying about this.)

He calls out to Brad in the living room. There’s no answer.

He has no plan for surviving whatever this is that doesn’t involve Brad. Fucking Brad will not be taken out by the fucking apocalypse.

Ray puts the handgun on the coffee table. He sits on the edge of the couch and waits. 

 

-

 

There’s a barrel pressed behind his ear; he can feel his skin purpling.

“How the fuck did you get in?”

Brad is in front of him, real.

Ray wraps his arms around Brad’s waist and buries his face in a threadbare shirt.

It’s dark again.

 

-

 

Brad leads him to the backyard. Under the stars, they build a fire. Brad rubs his hands over the licking flames. Ray undoes his shoes. His toes curl into the sand.

Brad bumps him with his shoulder.

“So this is what the end of the world is like.”

“It’s so fucking quiet.”

 

-

 

Brad heats a can of Chef Boyardee over the fire. They pass it between them. Ray retrieves two more oranges from the truck.

 

-

 

They dig ranger graves because that’s what they were trained to do. They’re shallower than they ever were over there, California soil too soft to square off hard edges.

 

-

 

It rains, more than a mist and less than a drizzle. Ray wakes up in what feels like sabkha.

 

-

 

Three days pass before their first fight. Ray acquires a split lip. Brad gets a black eye.

They don’t talk for hours after.

 

-

 

They stack the guns by the front and back doors. Brad gives Ray a spare holster for the handgun. “I don’t trust you not to blow your fucking balls off and bleed out before we figure out what’s going on.”

As far as pep talks go, it’s better than a burning dog moto speech.

 

-

 

They unroll two sleeping bags side by side on the living room floor. Ray doesn’t ask Brad who the second one belongs – or, rather, _belonged_ – to. He already knows the story.

 

-

 

They sleep in shifts, four hours each.

 

-

 

The first screams rip through the night. Ray feels Brad roll his shoulders into himself.

“We can’t stay here.”

Ray nods. He slides closer to Brad, hooks his chin over Brad’s shoulder.

They don’t say anything more.

 

-

 

Oceanside was once vibrant and vital. The only color not yet leeched out of this dead and gray world they now occupy is Brad – rich swathes of tattoo, fresh-shorn hair, and sparking eyes.

Ray knows time will change that. 

 

-

 

Brad disappears to pick through the local Whole Foods for enough supplies. Ray changes the oil in the truck. He finds a new tire on the neighbors’ minivan.

He cleans the guns with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He could almost think they were back in Iraq.

 

-

 

Ray is aware of him watching as they load the truck. Brad shifts and presses close into his personal space. 

Brad’s lips brush over his ear. Ray’s spine stiffens. He turns, and Brad is _there_. Ray’s throat starts to tighten and his mouth twists into something that could be a smile. He is aware of Brad like he never was before.

It’s tentative at first, and then Brad is sucking the taste of ash off his tongue. Ray tries to feel anything but confusion.

 

-

 

On the horizon, the mountains seem to be burning. Or crumbling.

They head toward them, looking for survivors.

 

-

**Author's Note:**

>  **Additional notes:** Don't try some of the stuff Ray does in this fic at home. It will end very badly.


End file.
